Thanks for checking out this Lightning Golementalist build. This is my first time writing a build guide, so please let me know if I missed anything. Also, feel free to ask questions, provide tips, or whatever.

Apologies in advance, as this guide isn't particularly casual/beginner-friendly. It's more for those that already have an okay grasp of POE and/or are interested in build optimization/numbers beyond whatever's on the wiki. If you're a beginner and still want a relatively quick-and-easy way to get into this, I suggest following the "SC" path in the Passive Tree section and the "TL;DR" portion of the Skills/Gems section.

Thanks ♫

(Note regarding 3.4 and beyond: For better or worse, the build's basically still the same, despite the continual power creep. I haven't really played POE in a while and I have a feeling I won't be coming back anytime soon, so I just want to apologize ahead of time for the lack of updates and late responses. Anyway, hope you all take care and have fun out there. :)

Basics of the Build

1) Maximize your golem count with these:
2 from Anima Stone
2 from Clayshaper(s)
1 from Liege of the Primordial (Elementalist Ascendancy)
1 from Elemancer (Elementalist Ascendancy)
1 from the base skill gem
------------------------------
7 total golems (or 6 with shield)
(or up to 10 if you opt for The Primordial Chain)

Why Crescendo?
+ My preferred version of the build focuses on the Orb of Sparks ability
+ Orb of Sparks is a Duration ability that builds up DPS and volume over 8 seconds
+ Multiple golems amplifies the ramp-up
+ Increased Duration gem maximizes the effect :)

Disclaimer/Warning

I don't know everything about golems. There's still a good bit of info that hasn't been figured out or revealed by GGG yet. That said, I'll try to answer questions to the best of my knowledge, no more, no less. If I don't know, I'll straight up say, "I don't know." What I won't do is gloss over questions, give vague responses, or treat this like a marketing exercise. I'm more interested in sharing information than build promotion. On the flip side, if you have some advice or notice something I've gotten wrong, please do let me know. Thanks!

As I said in the intro, this guide isn't really aimed at new players. While the build isn't hard to play, I don't know if I'd recommend this as your first foray into POE or golem builds unless you're fairly open-minded, dedicated, and/or masochistic. In fact, I'd say Flame Golems are easier for most players to get into. So maybe go play Flame first if you're not sure. You can even use the tree(s) and recommendations in this guide as a base if you want, as it's quite easy to switch back and forth between Flame to Lightning.

At the time of this writing, golems aren't cheap. They've gotten a good deal cheaper since the advent of the 3.0 spectre meta and since GGG killed afk boss-killing for minions. But you're still looking at a minimum of 2-3 exalts (in HC) just for the essential jewels.

Furthermore, a lot of people tend to be biased toward the Necro Flame variations when it comes to golems:

6) Pick up gear upgrades from poe.trade.
- Avoid spending currency to craft your own items for now
- Try to stick with what you pick up or can find on poe.trade < 1 chaos
- While leveling, it's usually easier to buy than craft, since people find more drops that are useful for builds other than their own.

7) Once you hit 41, get 2x Clayshapers.

8) Get Liege of the Primordial if you haven't already and follow with Elemancer.

Here's where you decide whether you really want to play Lightning Golems or go with something more established (Flame/Chaos). Or heck, maybe you'll discover Golementalist isn't really your thing :P

If you're still not sure, then you might want to turn back and consider some other build for now. Golem builds can be quite expensive to min/max (although you can say this about most builds). Anima/Might jewels can run you upwards of a few exalts each. If this doesn't scare you though, then good luck! Dive right in and tell me how your journey goes. :)

Also, if you decide to go with Stone or Ice instead, do share your experience, as not many people have tried taking those to endgame.

I know this is a little sparse on details (hence "rough"), so let me know if you have any questions. More than happy to answer/help where possible. :)

Rough guide for not-so-new players

1) Level to 41 as a caster.
2) Grab dual Clayshapers; farm for golem jewels (GMP+Pierce is good here).
3) Get gems up to 20/20 (and hopefully hit a LVL 21 Lightning Golem).
4) Grind your 6L and other upgrades (skip to step 5 if softcore).
5) Once gear is set start doing Shaper/Uber Atziri/Elder/etc.

+ Good single-target DPS with boss setup (probably fastest golem for boss kills)
+ Clearspeed configuration is okay (not quite spectre-tier, but decent)
+ Can lazy-mode (clear maps by just holding down the move key)
+ Can clearendgamedeathlessly (Not idiot-proof, but should be fine for HC)
+ Can do any map mod (quite a few "free" mods as well)
+ Off-meta, non-poison, non-double dipping, unlikely to be nerfed
+ Works decent on a budget
+ Easier on your computer (Flame Golems give me fps lag)
+ Cuter than the other golems (waddle waddle...)
+ Can easily reach 10,000+ EHP without a shield (14K+ w/ gg gear)
+ Build is CI or Hybrid/ZO :)

- Build is CI or Hybrid/ZO :(
- Expensive to min-max
- Like many ranged minion builds, suffers a bit in indoor/cramped maps
- Golemancer/summoner playstyle isn't for everybody
- Not a facetank build (need to dodge, which is kinda common sense really)

Golems in general are a good all-around build, regardless which type you choose. They're not the best build in the game for clearing (i.e. pre-nerf Vaal Spark/Fireball) or bossing (i.e. Blade Flurry). But, they do both well enough to provide a satisfying experience, especially for those that don't roll lots of different characters in a single league (due to family, full-time job, etc.). They're also really low maintenance.

So if you're looking for pure power, there are better options. But if you just want a chill, relaxed build that can still do all content with relative ease (or if you just like golems or non-meta stuff), then definitely give this a shot.

You don't need these exact colors/gems to start off a new league. Just get a Tabula or a cheap, corrupted 6L that's BBBGGx and slot whatever's convenient for the last gem.

I tend not to focus too hard on clearing trash mobs usually, but GGG has really been emphasizing the clearspeed meta since Breach League, followed by Breach League II (Legacy), Mini-Breach League (Harbinger), Mini-Breach League II (Abyss), some slight reprieve with Bestiary, and another round of speed freaks with Incursion, making it almost required for survival/enjoyment. So I'm forced to include a clearspeed setup in this build guide.

You don't need to use the boss setup if you don't want to. ThisGMP setup can do all contentjust fine. I just prefer to use the boss setup in order to optimize for certain fights in HC. What I tend to do is start the league with the GMP setup and switch over to the boss setup when I'm ready to do Shaper, Uber, other endgame league challenges. That way I only need to recolor once. Certain league mechanics can also generate white sockets in a deterministic manner for added convenience.

Re: efficient mapping with minions

For minions (particularly ranged minions), be they spectres, skellies, golems, or whatever, you generally want to run non-cramped layouts. Linear layouts like Strand are ideal, but open layouts like Dunes are fine too. You want to avoid overly cramped/indoor layouts because:

1) You don't want walls/objects blocking your minions projectiles.
2) If you're clearing efficiently, you should constantly be sprinting ahead of your minions. The reason for this is that minions automatically teleport to you after being separated a certain distance, continuing their offense (example). Narrow layouts can complicate things and make it difficult for you to navigate as safely while taking advantage of the minion teleport/leash mechanic. This is also why minion movement speed is not that helpful for non-melee minions.

Why does it have to be GMP?

It doesn't. Feel free to experiment with Chain, Summon Phantasm on Kill, etc. if you like. I recommend GMP+Pierce because it tends to be easier for people to get into and understand. Only thing I would avoid is doubling up on gems with "Less" damage modifiers.

Please note that this setup is entirely optional. You can do all content just fine with the mapping setup instead. I just prefer to use this setup to optimize for major fights in HC and ensure survival. I also map a lot on this setup, even though it's not clearspeed focused. There's a lot less graphical mess on-screen this way as well.

Do you recolor from clearspeed to bossing for every boss?

No. That would be way too much hassle, of course.

What I do is start a league with the clearspeed setup. Earn currency and get all my gear together. Then switch over to the bossing setup for Shaper, Uber Atziri, and the rest of the league challenges.

Why Increased Duration? What about Empower?

Orb of Sparks is a Duration-tagged skill that lasts about 8 seconds without it and 14 seconds with. This means Increased Duration can deliver significantly more value against the final boss(es). Here's a rough video comparison single-target DPS of different support gem setups:

2017.06.29: Did same test as above with ID and Added Lightning as 5&6, which clocked in at around 1m31s, a result that beats the other configurations video'd above and is also consistent with PoB numbers. Also FYI, POB doesn't count ID in DPS calcs yet.

Anyway, back to the point: Increased Duration acts like a +74% More modifier for fights that last 15+ seconds (i.e. the game's megabosses: Shaper, Uber Atziri, Uber Elder, and other multi-phase bosses). Now, ID by itself doesn't do anything for damage per cast, so it won't help for shorter fights or clearspeed.

So why bother with this at all if it's unnecessary? Well, despite all the defensive layers, CWDT gimmicks, etcetera that are in the game, the HC meta still basically only cares about 3 main things: mouse/movement proficiency, DPS, and total EHP. EHP is basically the only defense that works all the time, against any kind of attack, and isn't RNG-based (especially vs. the one-shot meta). Good movement avoids the infamous one-shots/instagibs so your EHP isn't tested to begin with. High DPS means shorter fights. Optimize those three things and you'll minimize the overall risk of losing your character.

It's not bad, but diminishing returns after applying EE means you'll get slightly more benefit from a "More" multiplier gem like Elemental Focus or Controlled Destruction. Just for reference, Shaper has 40% ele resists and curses are only 20% effective against him. EE is (afaik) unaffected by reduced curse effectiveness, which is pretty huge.

Orb of Sparks only hits once. How does Spell Echo help?

Spell Echo doubles the amount of orbs, thought it's hard to tell since the golems stack them on top of each other. Furthermore, SE increases the rate at which each orbs attacks.

That's certainly an option. I just tossed in MD and Empower without really thinking about it. Lately, I tend to go with Culling+MD, especially to shorten fights against bosses that break out new tricks as they get low on health.

Golem type/config? Pure 7x? 5.1.1? Shield?

Re: config
For overall damage, I recommend 5.1.1.

For pure mapping/clearspeed, 6.1 looks to be the best (6xLightning, 1xFlame). If you go this route, I recommend FlameGolem-SpellEcho-GMP-MinionDamage for your links. 5.1.1 is still fine for mapping though, especially if you don't want to give up freeze/chill immunity from the ice golem.

I've put together a rough calculator in case people are interested in optimizing how many golem types to use depending on the # of Primordial Harmony: (Google Docs).

Re: shield
Victario's Charity+Necromantic Aegis is basically the same DPS as a 2nd Clayshaper (https://youtu.be/9F8Lyy5QwRY). Except that it costs you another passive point, which is why I skip it.

You may even consider going 5xLightning + 1xFlame + ES/Life Shield for pure mapping with extra safety in HC.

Golem type?
Elemental golems all the way. For HC, you can run a Chaos and/or Stone Golem while mapping/farming for that extra little bit of regen and physical damage reduction. I personally don't bother though and just stick with Flame and Ice. I recommend sticking with elemental golems for endgame bosses too, as elemental damage immunity doesn't apply to non-elemental golems.

If you play with Shav's+Zealot's Oath and stack a lot of Harmony, then Stone Golem is a good choice (Flame-Ice-Stone-Culling)

Curse on Hit + dual curses enables you to do all of your debuffing with a single click (including Elemental Equilibrium) on a 4L. This provides significant flexibility for other gem slots in your setup. More room for your Offering, Immortal Call, or whatever kind of offensive/defensive utilities you prefer. Less clicking also means more focus on safety/dodging (especially true with Orb of Storms which you can cast effectively without having to change direction/movement).

Some people prefer cursing via Blasphemy, which is not a bad choice. A Temp Chains aura basically trivializes trash mobs. Feel free to modify the suggested gem links for TC/Blasphemy if you feel lazy, want training wheels, and/or run maps with bad/cramped layouts. It basically turns mapping into a walking simulator. I've actually run TC/Blasphemy on top of a CoH-dual curse setup before, even with a 2-curse limit. You get up-close protection from the TC aura, but still have the ability to go with double offensive curses for enemies far away.

For mapping
Glacial Cascade/Ball Lightning:
GC is faster, but has less coverage (needs level 20 for +2 radius). Ball Lightning is slower, but has more coverage. It's basically your personal preference here.

You can also just stick with Orb of Storms full-time, which can be safer in some situations due to not having to stop and aim (although Ball Lightning is more useful in situations where you want to curse at long distance).

Frost Wall:
This can be another good manual defensive layer in some situations (i.e. vs. porcupines) as well as acting as a CoH skill.

For bosses
Orb of Storms (LVL 17)
Orb is good for close-range fights, particularly Shaper/Uber. It's very hassle-free, giving you more time to focus on other stuff (i.e. staying alive).

Ball Lightning (LVL 1)
On some bosses you can just hide offscreen and direct your golems with Ball Lightning.

Shock Nova
If you're going offensive with [Three Dragons + Beacon of Ruin] for shock effect, you might as well switch your main curse to Shock Nova to get more mileage out of it. Though it can be a bit more finicky for targeting, Shock Nova provides the most Increased Effect of Shock out of all spells.

Why Avatar of Fire?
- Lightning Golems have a mini Wrath aura
- The mini Wrath gives your spells lightning damage
- If you deal lightning damage, it will mess up EE
- AoF makes you deal only fire no matter what, so you won't mess up EE

For Uber Atziri (re: curse reflection)
I suggest swapping out Elemental Weakness for Enfeeble, in case you mess up with your Warding Flask. Getting Enfeeble reflected back at you doesn't matter since it doesn't affect your golems. Getting hit with your own Elemental Weakness on the other hand can be fatal. Having your Conductivity reflected back at you isn't as big a deal, since Storm Calls are easy to dodge. This is also a reason why you should be happy if one of your maps has the "Players are enfeebled" mod. It's basically free item quantity.

For HC
You could go the classic Enfeeble/Temp Chains route for mapping/leveling and also Hydra, but I'd probably stick to offensive curses against Shaper/Uber/etc., since they can burst you down pretty fast regardless, due to severely reduced curse effectiveness. Most of the major bosses in this game don't move around much to begin with. The faster they die, the fewer shenanigans they pull.

Other links
Your golems and curses take up your chest piece and two 4Ls. This gives you 10-12 other gem slots to play with.

If you incorporate the 3 skills above, that leaves you with 7~9 slots. I could simply tell you what gems to put in, but this part really comes down to personal preference. So I'll just give you some suggested links I often use that you can mix and match to fill out the rest of the build:

Defensive Options

Decoy Totem
Self-explanatory. Just need one open slot somewhere.

Purity of Fire/Ice/Lightning
Self-explanatory. Just need one open slot somewhere. I only work this in for certain fights like Uber Atziri (Fire/Lightning) or Uber Elder (Cold).

CWDT-(Vaal) Immortal Call-(Vaal) Discipline-Increased Duration
Drop CWDT to manually tank Shaper's slam attack. No need to level CWDT. In fact, it will trigger Stone Golem if you overlevel it and socket it in your Clayshaper.

Vaal Discipline vs. Shaper

I recommend popping Vaal Disc just before Zana's bubble dissipates. It will give you an extra bit of safety margin in case Shaper attacks from offscreen and offers quicker recovery in case of a stray bullet hell projectile.

Shaper Slam: Immortal Call vs. Dodging/Running

Using self-cast IC instead of running/dodging allows you to stay close to your golems (and keep them within Wrath range).

You also don't have to worry about accidentally running through Vortex pools and/or Shaper clone attacks.

Increased Duration-Enduring Cry
I swap over to this during Chimera's add phase to gain Endurance Charges that help give me an extra long Immortal Call when the smoke phase begins.

CWDT-Frost Wall-Phase Run
Bread and butter defensive setup. Socket order must be R-B-G to avoid Frost Wall overwriting Phase Run. Frost Wall on CWDT is like pseudo-block and protects you against a wide variety of mapping threats.

It also helps protect Zana during Shaper's add phase. Replace Frost Wall with an overleveled Frost Wall when you want to manual cast it (works great during Elder add phase and also stops stuff like Porcupine spikes). Careful not to overlevel CWDT if you put it in your Clayshaper. It will trigger Stone Golem at LVL 10+.

For extra protection, add Enfeeble and turn this into a 4L if you like. You'll probably need to drop Minion Damage in your sub-golems link to make this happen.

Replace Frost Wall with Arctic Breath if your party members get annoyed by it :)

Blasphemy-Temporal Chains
Feel free to run this on top of your dual-curse CoH setup for extra protection up close while maintaining offensive debuffs at long distance. Useful if you want lazy mapping while watching Twitch/Youtube. Keep in mind you won't be able to run this simultaneously with Wrath without investing in Mana Reservation reduction nodes and/or Enlighten.

CWDT-Enfeeble
As an alternative to Blasphemy-TC, in case you want to have less reserved mana/more EHP from Mind Over Matter.

Ball Lightning-Knockback(-GMP-SlowerProj)
Not that many places where this is useful, but can be a lot of fun.

Lightning Warp-Less Duration-Faster Casting
Can add in Swift Affliction for even faster activation. I recommend this as a 3 or 4L vs. Uber Elder.

Other Notes
This build also has the flexibility to go for a few mana reservation reduction nodes to run Discipline + 2x Purities if you want. Like I said, the remaining links are more about your personal preference/goals. You can (and for HC should) recolor/customize links depending on your needs, even just for specific boss fights.

Not sure what to pick? Then skip down to the TL;DR section.

Offensive Options

Flesh Offering and/or Desecrate
As the build has enough offense, I tend to skip Offerings. The option is there for you though.

Wrath
Self-explanatory. Just need one open slot somewhere. Link with Generosity for extra effect.

Vaal Lightning Trap or Vaal Haste
Self-explanatory. Just need one open slot somewhere.

re: Flexibility and weapon swapping...

You can have another set of Clayshapers in your weapon swap so you can switch to additional utility skills of your choice without decreasing your golem numbers.

TL;DR

No thinking! Just linking!

Fine. Fair warning though, if you let me pick your links, I'm going to be really conservative. It will be up to you if you want re-config more offensively.

Note that this isn't the setup you want to use for Uber Elder. But you can worry about that if/when you get there.

Also note, there are 4 curses slotted, despite a 2 curse max. Why? You get the benefit of defensive curses when enemies are near you and/or actually get a hit on you, but retain the ability to offensively curse enemies farther away.

At the time of this writing, golem builds aren't cheap. The Primordial Jewels by themselves can easily cost you hundreds of chaos orbs (depending on the league), an amount that could fund 2 or 3 other decent builds. So be sure you enjoy golems or are curious/rich enough to give them a serious try before jumping into this.

Each one will give you an extra golem. Try to get Clayshapers with 30% minion life rolls. Clayshapers inherently allow you to cast Stone Golems that are actually fairly effective for leveling from 41 to 55-ish.

You may also consider replacing a Clayshaper with Victario's Charity or Malachai's Loop and taking Necromantic Aegis. I wouldn't though. I recommend just sticking with dual Clayshapers to save a passive point. If you're going to go with a shield, I think it's better to grab one that significantly boosts your EHP/defense instead. Magna Eclipsis is an okay alternative to a rare ES shield, depending on how good you are at avoiding hits. It's also really nice for the +gem level boost, potentially giving you access to LVL 23 Purities (Purity bonus goes up +1% @23).

Victario's vs. 2nd Clayshaper Testing

My limited testing shows DPS to be about the same. I guess Victario's is probably slightly better in situations where you can reliably generate Power Charges as well, but Clayshaper helps in situations where you want more minion life (Alluring Abyss Trio, Minotaur).

Tried a couple Shaper runs with Malachai's Loop as well, subbing in Increased Critical Damage for Elemental Focus to take advantage of the Power Charges. It seems basically as fast as a 2nd Clayshaper or Victario's.

If you have tons of exalts for some reason, here are some things you can waste them on:

1) Try to corrupt/buy a 6L with +1 to gems.

2) Corrupt/buy a 6L with 2 or more white sockets and the rest blue. This way you can swap between the general setup and the single-target setup on the fly. Certain league mechanics can also generate white sockets in a semi-deterministic manner for added convenience. Mileage may vary in terms of cost.

With the introduction of Shaper/Elder rares in 3.1, it's possible to get a pseudo-6L in your 4L gear slots and add Spectres to the mix. That said, I cannot really recommend one at this time, since Shaper/Elder mods take up a prefix/suffix just like any other mod. As this is an HC-focused build, I recommend keeping it simple and going for gear with more ES/Life stats. Moreover, without massive amounts of generic Increased Minion Damage, your Spectres will only be doing a fraction of a legit Necro Spectre build.

If you want more offense without having to use Spectres, one option would be The Three Dragons (hopefully with a Lightning Golem enchant) so you can shock with your (Avatar of) Fire damage. This would require you to spec into Beacon of Ruin instead of Paragon of Calamity. Another would be to use an Elder/Shaper/Essence helm to deal direct damage with a self-cast spell.

Another offensive option is Crown of the Tyrant. I try to avoid hyperbole, but this helm looks a bit ridiculous. Need to get my hands on one to make sure, but at face value, it's already stronger than a LVL 21/20 Added Lightning Gem...

For Elementalist builds, I honestly don't believe adding Spectres to to the mix boosts overall DPS appreciably vs. pure Golems. The points/resources invested/wasted into the Spectres makes the Golems proportionally weaker. For Golemancer, okay, it makes sense. For Golementalist, no.

If you're willing to sacrifice defense for more offense, The Primordial Chain or Perquil's Toe both surpass Yoke of Suffering as a DPS option. Still need to see final numbers on P.Chain before we know which one is better. Check the Golem Damage Calculator for comparative values on P.Chain.

You may consider shaving off 1 or 2 jewel nodes to grab more ES/HP nodes if you like. If you're rich/bored, feel free to corrupt your Jewels for Silence immunity, extra minion damage, and other nice perks. List of potential corruptions here: POEDB.tw

Feel free to experiment with some Primordial Eminence if you feel you have enough golem regen. Eminence is better for mapping to a degree, because more cast speed and less cooldown means the golems will do their projectile move more often. For Minotaur or Uber Trio, you might consider going full Harmony for max golem regen.

What stats are important for Primordial Harmony?

You'll want to focus on the 2nd and 3rd stats. A perfect Harmony jewel will basically be xx%/45%/20%/2%. For a demonstration of how cooldown affects golem skills, check this video: https://youtu.be/47ItXfdwTEg

Harmony Cooldown Bug and 3.3 Fix

3.3 Update:
Bugged cooldown removed. Unbugged cooldown boosted to compensate. No change in golem power level. Yay! For those interested in some boring history behind the bug:

Followup from Mark_GGG:
The double-dipping cooldown effect is apparently a bug that will be fixed in the future. This fix could severely diminish DPS for all golem builds. Stay tuned...

Does Harmony really make golems immortal?

No, but close enough.

Only extreme phys or DOT damage can kill your golems. I can count the number of situations that present such damage on one hand:
1) Uber/Vaal Temple Trio
2) The Unique Lich in Abyss
3) Guardian of the Minotaur
4) Hall of Grandmasters
5) Every once in a while a freak combo of mods in a rippy map can chop down some golems (like in the old T15 Overgrown Ruin)

For every other fight in the game, your golems will either out-regen the damage or simply be immune. This will give you not only peace of mind, but the flexibility to devote more passive points and attention toward your own HP pool.

So how do you deal with those few situations that are potentially lethal for your buddies?

Simple. Just re-summon. Their massive regen will ensure that they don't go down quickly, giving you plenty of time to pop out fresh ones. For extra insurance, you can always go full Harmony for these fights instead of Harmony/Eminence mix.

Rings
Life and ES will take up 2 prefixes. You'll want to spend the last prefix on "Faster Start of Energy Shield Recharge". This is available as a LVL 3 Leo craft (you'll have to find a crafting service if you don't PVP; check in the shops forum section). The Leo craft is good because the ES Recharge Delay is calculated on a steep curve. This means that Faster Start of ES Recharge, even in relatively small amounts, can have a significant effect:

The difference between 2.0s and 1.3s may not seem like a big deal on paper. But in practice, you can really feel it on harder content, especially during chaotic fights like vs. Uber Elder. IMO, Faster Start of ES Recharge is a much better investment than ES Regen in terms of effectiveness in battle and how many points/slots you spend.

+Minion Movement Speed is available as an Essence craft. I think it's a waste though, since these aren't melee golems. Minion Movement Speed can actually be slightly detrimental in that your minions won't teleport to you as fast if they're trying to run to you.

Gloves
You may consider crafting Increased Minion Damage instead of Life/ES if you have an open prefix. It's a Catarina craft.

Others
Since the Lightning Golem helm enchant isn't that popular, chances are that you'll have to buy a white enchanted Hubris and craft the other mods yourself afterwards. That means Trans > Alt > Regal > rinse and repeat x1000 > Elreon multi-mod, which is expensive. So don't try this until you've built up some bank.

Let me know if you need more details on crafting.

With the new belts from 3.1, you may want to consider a Stygian Vise. You may even want the unique Stygian Vise that allows you to slot 2 Abyss Jewels. You can potentially hit 250+ combined ES+Life from your belt slot this way, which exceeds Crystal Belts (max. 221 combined ES+Life).

If you can work it into your build, I highly recommend Bisco's Leash (the belt) even more than the amulet. It's one of the most fun items in the game.

I also used to have an easy to swap Culling set that I used every once in a while, just for fun.

Flasks

Mapping
+ X of Curing (if Hybrid ES/Life)
+ X Quartz of Warding (curse immunity)
+ X of Staunching
+ Quicksilver of Adrenaline
+ (your choice, Basalt is good, Rumi's if you run a defensive shield)
Try running around/past every pack with Quicksilver of Adrenaline and Quartz of Warding. In addition to not having to worry about curses, you can pretty much treat Temporal Chains as another free quantity map mod.

If you have the bleed immunity corruption on a ring, then you have even more flask flexibility.

Shaper
+ a mix of Quartz and Quicksilver/Adrenaline
+ X of Staunching (if you want to run through regen phases)
+ X of Sapphire (when exiting Zana's bubble)
+ X of Sulphur (for a bit of extra damage)

The Adrenaline and Quartz flasks help you speed through Shaper's regen phases. They also help out slightly in combination with your Sapphire flask at the end of "bullet hell" phases. Some of the "bullets", which do cold damage, linger for a bit, even after Zana's bubble dissipates. The Shaper also uses this as a window of opportunity to launch his next attack from offscreen sometimes, which is why this is probably the sketchiest part of the fight I think.

Minotaur
+ a mix of anti-phys and Topaz
+ (flasks won't help you much in this fight imo)

Phoenix
+ a mix of anti-phys and Ruby
+ X of Adrenaline (to run away faster from Firebomb in a Temp Chains map)

Chimera
+ X of Staunching
+ anti-phys
+ Quicksilver of Adrenaline

With the exception of Chimera, it's better to just focus on avoiding hits rather than worrying about what flasks to pop against Guardians. But if you can work good flask usage into your game, more power to you.

If you have the resources, I suggest practicing with Normal Atziri by removing all your damage support gems, chopping off 2 or 3k ES, and trying to get in the habit of anticipating when to flask up. I don't have a lot of experience with this fight, so take my advice with a grain of salt, but my feeling is that her Flameblasts are more dangerous than the Storm Calls, which is why I pack more Ruby than Topaz and run Purity of Fire instead of Lightning.

Uber Elder
Sapphire of Adrenaline (or Sapphire + Quicksilver) and a Life flask or two should be enough.

Dream Gear

This is what the build would probably look like if I had ten thousand mirrors (or maybe POE Hero Editor™):

https://pastebin.com/XsMPGXS2 (POB)

I left out legacy items/stats because we have to keep this *cough*realistic*cough* obviously.

The build is fundamentally complete at level 85-ish. Anything beyond that is just picking up extra ES/Life nodes and/or jewel slot(s). If your Lightning Golems aren't level 21, I suggest waiting until 90-95 before doing Shaper on HC. If you're playing SC, just yolo at 75 or whatever. It's actually pretty easy to do deathless Shapers even on a 5-link, once you get used to it.

Honorable Mentions:
Whispers of Doom
- +1 curse
Essence Surge
- not recommended until you get Leo ES recharge mastercraft
Mind Over Matter
- just a single point for an extra 200-500 EHP
Necromantic Aegis
- meh, okay for mapping i guess
- lately I prefer spending this point on extra Life/ES
Sovereignty (to run 3rd aura)
- unnecessary if you only run Discipline and 1 other aura
Gravepact or Righteous Army cluster
- only get one of these if the next jewel socket is 5+ points away
- otherwise I think Harmony provides more overall value
- take Minion Life Leech; skip Minion Life
Beacon of Ruin (Ascendancy)
- offensive option
- must sacrifice EHP and pair with Three Dragons to shock with Avatar of Fire
- nobody bothers to enchant this helm unfortunately

Note that golems do not benefit directly from any Ascendancy nodes outside of LotP and Elemancer. As a general rule of thumb for summoners, if a passive tree node doesn't say "minion" it affects only you, not the golem.

Pantheon

These are just my personal preferences. Be sure to adjust your Pantheon perks often to suit the task at hand (reduced DOT for Lab, Abberath for burning ground maps, etc.). But if you want to just set and forget it, then I recommend the following:

If you have Stun Immunity
Solaris
- combine with Paragon of Calamity for permanent 8% reduced elemental damage taken (equivalent of ~+2% max res)

Beyond that, I would encourage players to not only look at DPS calcs, but at actual skill mechanics (feel, effect), and actual testing. This goes for all skills, not just golems/minions. Simple DPS numbers can't give you an apple-to-apples comparison.

There is also what I consider a common misconception that Flame Golems clear significantly faster than Lightning Golems. I feel that both have different advantages, but clear more or less at the same pace. Having played both extensively, I would probably give a slight edge to Flame, but the gap is definitely not that big imo. See a video comparison here: https://youtu.be/UZ21M9M0EjU

As for single-target, I think the other videos in the section above show Lightning is perhaps a bit better.

3) Why does mapping feel awkward with the boss setup?

Spoiler

Try walking past packs instead of waiting for them to die (this applies to the mapping setup as well). It'll feel weird at first not making sure monsters are dead before moving on. But if your gems are fully leveled and you have Primordial Might, your golems will trail and leave orbs behind that will clear packs as you walk away (note this requires a certain degree of familiarity with map layouts and can be somewhat dangerous to do in tight quarters). In this respect, it's kind of similar to Earthquake.

This does have the disadvantage of causing you to miss low-value currency and items (your filter will tell you if something valuable is worth backtracking for). But this might actually be an advantage in that it forces you to play a bit more efficiently and not spend time picking up every nickel, dime, and bauble.

If you want more clearspeed, then just recolor your chest and run with GMP+Pierce. I tend to do this at the start of a league and switch over to the boss setup when I'm ready to do the harder challenges. If you still want more clearspeed, you should try an actual clearspeed build. This build is intended more as a boss-killer than mapper. :)

4) Can I play this build as Flame Golems?

Spoiler

Yes. Just drop Avatar of Fire. And use appropriate Flame Golem links (Empower is not an optimal link for a Flame Golementalist).

If you're rich and can get 1 or 2 OP Ghastly Eye jewels, then that will be a small upgrade in the belt slot vs. a GG Crystal Belt. That's about it.

With the introduction of Shaper/Elder rares in 3.1, it's possible to get a pseudo-6L in your 4L gear slots. That said, I cannot really recommend one at this time, since Shaper/Elder mods take up a prefix/suffix just like any other mod. The combination of available mods only synergize well with Flame Golem anyway. As this is an HC-focused build, I recommend going for gear with more defensive stats.

On a minor note, I've dropped the Death Attunement and Gravepact nodes from my tree. You could get another Primordial jewel for those points instead, which would provide more value. Or else just get more HP nodes.

With my current setup, LGs have a relatively low health pool of around 19K HP (forgot the exact number, will check after I get home from work). So for the Minotaur fight, I re-color my chest piece to shuffle in Empower (and Minion Life). Even then, they still die, so I think the fight is much (ch)easier with Stone golems.

If you happen to have the other LG vs. Shaper video link, could you please share? I'd be very interested in seeing it, as I still have many questions regarding this build myself. I was also considering Freezing Pulse to proc EE, but ended up going with Glacial Cascade, which seems to have better coverage (although I'm currently experimenting with Frost Wall). I'm not sure pathing to Avatar of Fire for that QoL boost is worth it, unless you're already doing a Zealot's Oath version of LGs. Curses/EE tend to last long enough that you have plenty of time to re-position and recast, even against the reduced curse effectivness of Shaper/Guardian.

2017.05.28 Update
I take that back. Tried Avatar of Fire out. It really is way more convenient. I can see it helping speed up Shaper's add phase as well, so it's more than just QoL. It comes at the expense of 1 or 2 passive points (depending on how much STR on gear you have), but seems more than worth it. Lesson learned. Thanks for the tip.

Im currently level 75 with 4 golems (1 fire, 1 ice and 2 lightning) and 6400 ES. Doing maps at my level, tier 8 and all is well. I can really see this build taking off if i can get the needed jewels. Fun to play and pretty fast to level up and clear maps so far.